Little deeds are like little seeds, they grow to flowers or to weeds.
Daniel D. Palmer
Until the Trollhunter was fully healed and battle-ready she was unable to go up and spy on Bular and his ilk, and as Trollmarket mostly repaired itself the only thing they could do was wait, occasionally taking on an odd-job or two as Alexandra slowly trained back to full strength.
It was fortuitous, or perhaps ironic, that someone who was injured so easily also healed quickly. But the unfortunate part of the process was that Alexandra tended to push herself too far, re-injuring herself and lengthening the process.
Blinky was greatly concerned about the wounds on her arms. She said that she would explain how she had acquired them later, but when later came about she said she'd explain on a different later. His worry wasn't about their cause so much as it was about their nature. Trolls did not burn, not as humans did. Their skin, as living stone, did not blister or boil. Alexandra's skin cracked as it should have under too much heat, but the skin was twisted and warped in an unusual nature, and the first time that Blinky had touched the still-hot burns he felt the tips of his fingers stiffening, as if he had exposed them to sunlight. Alexandra had been extremely careful to keep her hands heavily bandaged since then. Blinky had wrapped her arms several times afterward, the heat having faded after a few hours, but she was still careful when moving them or touching someone. Blinky and AAARRRGGGHH agreed that the strange nature of her wounds made her uncomfortable with sharing their origin, perhaps even more uncomfortable than the obvious pain they caused.
Draal and Alexandra and AAARRRGGHH's right hand were all flaking away like a thin layer of clay that had cracked and dried, due to their contact with the anstramonstrum. The process, as AAARRRGGHH described it, was not so much painful as itchy, but it still looked exceedingly unpleasant and it made a terrific mess everywhere – although Trollmarket was a terrific mess anyway, to be honest.
The monstrous thing had been contained, at least, once they had located its home crystal. Blinky could suppose that the Changelings' information had been useful in that regard, but he still wasn't happy with her decision. Either way, the semi-demonic mist was now trapped in its crystal and sat pulsating sulkily on a high shelf in Kanjigar's quarters, an action that significantly cleared the minds of all in Trollmarket who had been forced to walk past it after the battle.
Draal was released from the examination dwell on the fifth day after the attack, when his lungs stopped crackling whenever he took too big of a breath. He was put on strict rest, and unlike the Trollhunter he was actually good about doing most of when Vendel told him. The only reason that Blinky could get Alexandra to sit down was either to study or to tend to Draal, who – despite his now welcomed status – she seemed to still consider her responsibility.
She kept him in her (now apparently his) room, and Blinky and AAARRRGGHH would occasionally come up to check on the two as they continued the book-learning part of Alexandra's training. It was cramped, and AAARRRGGHH often had to beg off after a few minutes. Blinky, for his part, had no idea why Alexandra had so many cats. Alive.They seemed to adore AAARRRGGHH, but Alexandra and Draal both yelled at him when he tried to eat one.
Once again Blinky was reminded of how studious their Trollhunter was, and he took pleasure in teaching her. Draal usually slept through his lessons, confined to the nest either by the Trollhunter's glare or by her sword, but on occasion he would stay up and listen. It was mildly depressing, but it reminded Blinky that Draal had received little in the way of education that did not directly have to do with Trollhunting. Kanjigar, despite the failings in parenting that Blinky was beginning to admit to, had at least tried to discourage his son from that chosen path, but Draal had been interesting in little else. His chance at achieving his lifelong goal was most probably destroyed, and he had nothing – no goal or interest or profession to fall back on. All he could do was train Alexandra, and until he was fully healed he could not even do that. Draal was more dependent on the Trollhunter's good will that Bilnky had initially realized.
In turn, she seemed almost as dependent on him, or at least she was willing to inconvenience herself for his sake.
"I had a little brother," Alexandra murmured once. Blinky, who had been reading aloud about the mental and physical properties of various edible crystals, had almost not heard her.
"Beg pardon?"
Alexandra didn't look at him. She sat on the nest, leaning against the wall with her legs propped between the crystals on Draal's back, her three remaining eyes closed. If she had not spoken, he could have mistaken her for sleeping.
"I had a little brother," she repeated. "He died before I was able to know him, but. Still."
Draal, with his head pillowed on his arms, didn't move, but Blinky saw his mouth twitch.
"I didn't think you felt very sisterly toward me," he muttered, the works muffled with a grin.
"Not particularly," Alexandra said, smirking. "But I imagine that taking care of you and enjoying your company would be something similar to having a brother. Or a pet."
Draal snorted into his elbow. "You have several pets, for whatever reason I cannot understand."
"I take care of my cats because I like them," the Trollhunter replied. "You are simply an argumentative diversion and a way for me to annoy Kanjigar."
"Stop arguing with my father, Trollhunter," Draal growled. Alexandra grinned down at him, still not opening her eyes.
"Make me," she said, knowing perfectly well that they could not grapple without re-injuring themselves.
Blinky had watched the exchange with wide eyes, his book forgotten until Alexandra looked back at him, prompting him to continue reading. He knew that this time, this time, she had actually been honest.
He read for a little while longer before Draal asked:
"What was his name?"
Alexandra didn't answer.
Their plan to infiltrate the Janus Order was still in operation, but the Changelings' attack only raised further issue. Blinky had acquired a glamour mask easily enough, with the help of Alexandra's many cats and their ceaseless mess, but how Alexandra was to disguise herself was another matter.
She had informed Blinky of everything the Changeling Stricklander had revealed before he had attacked her inside of the Heartstone, including the interesting little fact that not all Changelings were accounted for in the Janus Order. Alexandra could disguise herself as any human and pretend to be one of these unknown Changelings, but the unfortunate complication was that Bular and Stricklander would no doubt be on the watch for any suspicious figures prancing upon their hideout, claiming to be a long-lost follower. If Alexandra were, instead, to disguise herself as a known Changeling however, she could have to be exceedingly careful to be discovered as a double. Neither Blinky nor the Trollhunter knew if Stricklander was aware of the existence of glamour masks, but in the name of precaution they had to assume that he was.
Their next problem was figuring out why, exactly, the Janus Order – an organization know for their caution and secrecy – had found fit to openly attack the largest gathering of trolls in North America. Their main goal had not been made clear by Stricklander during Alexandra's terrifying interrogation, but Alexandra believed that she had a decent idea.
"Their goals were to capture you, at the very least, and kill Draal if they had the chance," she supposed one evening, pacing around the Forge as she stretched. "Bular has seen me protecting the both of you and apparently was very intent on breaking my morale by harming you. They also wanted to know who I was and how much we knew."
"You didn't…?"
"I lied."
Blinky ducked his head, chagrined and embarrassed to have even implied that she would have told them anything of value.
"I was right about them not knowing about the Leoht Stone at least, so now the Janus Order and Bular, probably his father too, now believe that I'm a Changeling. I'm wondering if this attack was a way to punish them."
Unable to comment without giving himself away, Blinky settled for merely nodding along. On the stairs behind him AAARRRGGHH seemed to be having no trouble at all in hiding his knowledge of Alexandra's true nature. Out of the two of them, the former Gumm-Gumm had always been the most steadfast, something that Blinky admired and envied of him daily.
"Gunmar likes to break," AAARRRGGHH rumbled, rather surprising Blinky. He did not talk of Gunmar often. Alexandra nodded contemplatively, testing out how flexible her shoulders were. Tiny flakes of hard, dead skin clattered softly to the ground as she moved.
"Bular just likes to break bodies, not minds," she muttered. "I don't know which I'd prefer."
"Body," murmured AAARRRGGHH. Blinky gently rubbed his arm.
"That being said, are you sure that you should be training this early? There still many adjustments that need to be made to our plans; you may have more time to rest…"
The air hummed as the Trollhunter donned her armor, the Sword of Daylight slicing through the air as she flipped it from one hand to the other. He had noticed that she was getting quite better at using all four arms now.
"I'm not going to strain myself," she growled, falling easily into one of Draal's forms. "Our defensed are better but I can't be that useless again."
"I would not call it 'useless'," Blinky said quietly, watching from AAARRRGGHH's side as the Hunter laboriously practiced her blocks. "You saved many lives in that battle. Draal's, certainly, would have been lost if not for you."
"And more died," Alexandra replied, her voice low and tight in the echoing chamber. "It wasn't enou – "
"I will hear no such thing," Blinky said, rising and slicing his hands through the air. Alexandra dropped the tip of her sword, looking at him with widened eyes.
"It will never be enough," he continued, walking down the stairs towards her as he crossed his arms behind his back. He stopped just out of range of the Daylight Sword.
"There will always be one that you missed, one that you could have saved with you had moved faster; fought stronger; been better. And that will not be your fault. I have heard these words too many times. Before. I have seen too many Trollhunters fall to that kind of poisonous thinking, driving themselves to an early death out of endless guilt and the pressing insistence that they have to save everyone in the world. You will not be able to save everyone, Alexandra."
She blinked at the use of her bare name, watching him stiffly.
"…I know."
"Do you?"
She stepped forward in an attempt to intimidate him. "Yes, I do. I am neither God or Merlin and I know that."
"Good."
Blinky turned away and settled back at AAARRRGGHH's side. Both of them looked pointedly at the Trollhunter's abdomen.
"Then you should have no problem ceasing your practice in order to take care of your wound."
Alexandra pressed a hand against her side and made a frustrated noise, banishing her armor. A little bloodstain was showing against her vest.
"Damn…"
Blinky noticed then something that she had said, something that might give her away should it be mentioned to any other trolls.
"'God', Master Alexandra? I didn't realize that you ascribed to that human belief."
Alexandra, in the middle of examining her wound, didn't flinch at all.
"You pick up a few things after a while," she said easily.
Oh, she's good.
He would bet half his secret stash of human romance novellas that she would never mention any God or human religion again. It made him vaguely guilty to make her push aside even such a small part of herself, but if he was going to help his Trollhunter then he also needed to help protect her from herself, and the ignorance that she still suffered from in terms of trollish customs and norms counted.
It didn't help that she was still healing. Although severe wounds did last on trolls, it was highly unusual for something to bleed for more than a day or so, if even that; most trolls simply bound the wound with molten metal or a sheet of metal foil. Alexandra's lasting injuries would be suspicious.
He knew that Vendel had his concerns, which was why Blinky was so insistent that Alexandra actually make an attempt to take care of herself.
It proved increasingly difficult when a tall, broad troll gimped into the Hero's Forge and started bleeding at her feel, with Draal walking behind him as escort.
"Trollhunter," the strange troll gasped. AAARRRGGHH gently offered his arm to him and he took it with a grateful smile. He swallowed with difficulty and looked properly at Alexandra, who had summoned her armor again. Even though she was a bit shorter than he, as far as regular trolls went she was intimidating, and he took a small step back.
"Um."
"Hold this for us, please," Alexandra said, and nodded to Blinky. He grabbed a gaggletack from his pocket and tossed it at the troll, who caught it out of reflex and blinked as he realized what he was holding.
"Um. Why - ?"
"Who are you, and why are you here," Alexandra asked, not unkindly. The troll gently handed the totem back to Blinky.
"My name is Felsiclase," he said, "I have need to call on you."
He glanced down at his chest, which wasn't actually bleeding anymore, but the wounds that slashed through the green skin still looked very fresh.
"There's a monster in the forests near my clan and the human town we live under," said Felsiclase. "It's been attacking human hikers and there is no one in my Heartstone that's enough of a fighter to kill it. It hasn't killed any of my clan yet, but it will still attack us if we go too far from our home. We need you to kill it for us."
Blinky felt his stomachs drop. They needed their Trollhunter here! Trollmarket was still recovering and their Trollhunter was recovering and Draal was recovering and it was too soon, they weren't reading for another calling. What if the Changelings attacked again? What if Alexandra fell to this monster? What if it was a ploy to get the Trollhunter out so that the Heartstone could be attacked again?
Alexandra, apparently oblivious to Blinky's silent panic attack, asked where the attack was, making the troll smile in relief.
"It's Ely, in Minnesota, in the Superior National Forest. The hikers started disappearing around the old mine shafts; we thought it might be one of our own, at first, because we still mine the ore there and that's how you get into our Heartstone, from the mines, but then one of our collectors actually saw this thing grab a camper. It's probably killed six humans so far, and wounded four of us."
AAARRRGGHH's warm had was a comforting presence on his shoulder, and despite his reservations, Blinky was intrigued. He stepped forward, ready to memorize any and all details.
"What can you tell us about the creature?"
Felsiclase shuddered.
"Gratz, our collector, said it was probably about fifteen feet tall, skeletally thin. He said it smelled like it had died already, and everybody who's been attacked said it had fangs and a long tongue. It was very fast and killed the humans quickly. I didn't get to see it clearly, but…"
He placed a hand on the wounds that cut across his chest. "It definitely has claws, too."
Blinky was grimacing before Felsiclase finished his description, already having an idea of what the Trollhunter was going to be facing.
Alexandra glanced over to him.
"You know what this is?"
"I will need to do further research," he replied, mentally cataloguing what books he'd need, "but I do believe so. If you will give me a few hours?"
Alexandra nodded. She gestured to Draal, who had been silently standing to the side.
"Will you take him to get something to eat," she asked, gesturing to Felsiclase. The green troll held up his hands.
"I've been here before, I know where to go," he said. "Thank you, Trollhunter. I…hope that you can kill that thing."
Felsiclase left the Forge with Draal's eyes on his back; the blue troll stepped up as soon as he left the bridge.
"If you are going to fight this creature, then I shall accompany you," he said, to Blinky's complete lack of surprise. Alexandra, contrary to what Blinky expected, accepted.
"We'll need the muscle," she said loudly when Blinky protested. "AAARRRGGHH's not going to fight the beast and I'm not in my best shape right now."
"You cannot leave Trollmarket unprotected!" Blinky stood as tall as he could in front of her, even as the blood in his veins shivered with worry.
"I won't,"Alexandra said, smiling faintly. "Trollmarket protects itself and anyhow, I don't think that there will be another attack soon. Their forces are decimated and they can't get back in now. Whatever they were after, they didn't get it, and they can't try again."
"And we never thought that they would in the first place," Blinky argued desperately, despite knowing, knowing, that he would never change her mind. "I…"
"You don't have to come," she said, to his surprise. "If you're that uncomfortable, then you and AAARRRGGHH stay. We'll be fine on our own."
It was in contradiction to all tradition, to leave a trainee Trollhunter to complete a call without her trainer, but Blinky knew that she was most likely in the right. The recent attack had severely put him on edge, but she was right; after such a defeat and bloody surrender, the Changelings would be unlikely to attack again. But it gnawed on him how easily they had given up, and how he still couldn't know what they were after. His library had been completely untouched, the bridge stone remaining hidden in its box.
Conflict ate at his heart and stomachs, and he turned away, grumbling to himself as he sat down beside AAARRRGGHH.
Alexandra had already considered the conversation to be done with, for she had given Draal a shove in the direction of the bridge.
"If you're going with us, you need to bathe. You stink like goblin and you'll lead the thing right to us."
Draal huffed.
"Only when it becomes convenient do you finally escort me to the baths," he said, to the Trolhunter's rising smirk.
"I'll scrape the guts off myself," she said, slipping past him to walk across the bridge. "I need to get clean anyway."
Blinky and AAARRRGGHH resignedly glanced at each other before Blinky took a step forward.
"Master Alexandra, your wound," he reminded her. "Perhaps you would let us take care of that first?"
"Sorry, Blinky," the infuriating woman called back, not even turning around as Draal lumbered on behind her. "I'll be washing my hair."
She did feel guilty about not taking Draal to the baths earlier, but his filthiness was his fault by now; he'd regained his status and thus the right to walk in Trollmarket unmolested, and he still hadn't gotten himself cleaned up. She'd been busy, but he really had no excuse.
Men.
He was still peeling and flaking over portions of his body, and as the dead skin fell off so did most of the Changeling and goblin mess. He looked horrible with the cracks and patches of gore, and Alexandra just wanted to shove him through a car wash. As it was, she only had a few large pumice stones and her own claws, which would simply have to do.
As they entered the damp, darkened chambers she checked the wrappings on her hands, making sure that all skin was covered before getting to work, knowing full well that Draal's father would be watching them like a hawk.
It had been a very long time since she'd taken a bath with a man – running naked through the cold rain during her travelling days of the 1970's didn't count. It probably would have been more appealing if there weren't bits of dried green intestine flaking off of him and she didn't have painful burns on her arms and a half-healed wound on her side that pulled when she stepped into the water.
But to the assholes in the Void they were still naked and in a dark, relatively secluded area, so Alexandra took the opportunity to give Draal's back a very thorough wash, scrubbing her claws between the crystal projections on his shoulders and spine, which apparently felt so good that he gave a little rumble and let her do her thing without argument.
After a while of scrubbing and many quiet minutes of hard deliberation, Alexandra took a look around to make sure that they were alone, and then did a little trick she'd taught herself back in the 1700's; she partially Changed her hands, the tiny human fingers getting between the crevices of his crystal growths significantly easier.
Draal stiffened at the flash of light and the suddenly lighter touch, but he didn't speak or make a movement, much to her relief. She had never touched a troll with human hands before. She had never needed to take that kind of risk, nor had she had the sort of friend with whom she ever could.
Taking a bath with her friend was one thing, but daring to reveal herself this far was another, and Alexandra suddenly felt immensely exposed and uncomfortable. She turned her hands back and kept scrubbing, watching how the light reflecting from the water played with the crystals beneath her fingers.
Since he didn't have any hair, Alexandra washed his horns and the back of his head instead. Kanjigar was probably having an aneurism.
She was just pumicing the back of Draal's ears when his head shifted.
"What are you doing and why are you doing it?"
"I'm trying to piss off your father," she answered, her smirk evident in her voice. Draal was quiet for a moment and then he nodded.
"Then you'd better let me wash your hair," he said, and her laughter bounded across the walls.
Droplets of water make little pit, pit, pats on the leathery coverings of Kanjigar's old bed. Alexandra pushed her drying hair from her face for the umpteenth time before she turned the page of a handwritten journal, looking for a sign of what she might have to face.
As Trollhunter it was her duty to fight whatever threatened the human and troll worlds, although the 'human' part was more often left to the humans themselves. But when monsters were the threat, it was necessary for her to intervene. Trollhunters as a group had a tendency to write down everything, and Kanjigar had amassed a neat little series of journal inscribed with the various creatures past Trollhunters had had to face. Alexandra had some difficulty deciphering some of the handwriting and older Trollish tongues, but she found a few cases of skeletal, ravenous beasts that had been encountered over the North American continent. Google, honestly, could probably be more enlightening, but it would be a while before she could get to the surface to use a computer.
The stories seemed mainly rooted in Native American folklore, but there were relatively recent accounts as well. The illustrations were…interesting, at least. Alexandra hadn't had many encounters with actual monsters, not since her days in the Darklands, but the pictures and descriptions of these 'wendigos' were not encouraging.
There were few concrete ways to kill it. Some used fire. Some used Daylight. Some used fists and teeth. The creature was both material and spirit, corporeal and incorporeal.
And it's not very damn useful, Alexandra thought with a huff as she closed the last of the journals.
She was quite pleased that she would not have to sneak out under Blinky's nose, and he and AAARRRGGHH said goodbye to Alex and Draal just outside of the gyre portal. The gyre took them almost directly to Felsiclases's mine, stopping in a sewer just outside of the city of Ely. It was a little bit cooler, with a damp kind of air that was charged with the heavy smell of wet wood and the distant scent of a chill on Lake Superior. They arrived three hours before sunset, so that Alexandra could meet with the trolls of the Isarnan Heartstone, a deep red crystal embedded in a cavern of gleaming black rock. The effect was beautiful and unsettling, but the pulse of the tiny Heartstone was just as welcoming to her as the big one back home.
When had she begun to think of Trollmarket as home…?
The cavern's grim appearance wasn't quite as horrifying as the fact that there were motherfucking gaggletacks EVERYWHERE. Alex almost expected the whole place to crackle with magic when she stepped inside. Apparently Isarnan Heartstone was built underneath on of the purest veins of magical iron in the entire country. Their main export was iron charms and totems to protect against fae, smells, and curses, but gaggletacks – although they had fallen out of popularity when cars replaced horses and the likelihood of confusing a gaggletack with a true horseshoe had decreased – were still in business. The entire place was decorated with rejected or low-powered totems and gaggletacks, from the door handles to the light fixtures.
Alexandra stepped very, very carefully, and kept her hands covered in her armored gloves.
She was duly introduced to the trolls within, around four hundred or so who had gathered in the largest cavern to welcome her and Draal. Apparently no Trollhunter had ever visited before, and they kindly expressed regret that she could not have come under better circumstances, as well as concern for her present state. Since she was still bandaged from fingertip to shoulder, had cracks in the skin of her face and torso, and scratches across her cheeks and nose, they wondered openly if she was up to killing the monster. Draal was hasty to reassure them, citing her battles with Bular and singing praises that Alex was certain he was making up on the spot, but eventually the Isarnan trolls were appeased. She would have to fight the thing whether she was up for it or not, anyway.
Alex made a point to talk to and get the opinions of the trolls who had been attacked by the wendigo. They bore deep, iron-patched wounds that matched the ones on Felsiclase's chest and were quite eager to share their stories. Weapons came next, when the trolls looked at Draal's empty hands and declared him fit to be a dead troll. They equipped him with swords and spears, shields and wonderful little flares that would set just about anything on fire once dropped, but he examined little and chose even less. He and Alexandra were taken to their temporary room soon afterward, and an hour before dark, Alex started to leave.
"You are going up?"
She paused with her hand on the door.
"I need to Google a few things," she muttered. Draal's brow furrowed.
"What is a Google?"
"I'm researching," Alex replied. "The human libraries are easier to look through. I'll bring you back a snack."
Even with her gloves on the gaggletack handle crackled faintly when she opened the door, to her annoyance. A shiver ran up her spine and she strode away as quickly as she could. More and more trolls were coming up and about as night loomed, and it was a matter of patience to get outside. She only remembered just before entering the final hallway that she could simply tell everyone who questioned her leaving about the Leoht Stone, and so she dropped her sneaking act in favor of just walking out the front door. The few trolls who saw her off gasped in surprise but thoroughly enjoyed the spectacle when she explained.
At the edge of the woods she turned forms. There was no time or opportunity to manage her appearance, and unfortunately – due to her disabled eye – she stood out. It would simply have to do, because she didn't have enough time.
The local library confirmed her prior research but was just as contradictory on the actual nature of the beast. Apparently, it varied from encounter to encounter. She pilfered three lightbulbs out of the library's lamps in annoyance, and began the trek out to the woods under the yellow glaze of sunset. It was dark enough when she hit the woods for her to change, and in the silence of twilight she took a quieter road, stepping as lightly as her larger body could allow. From her discussions with the Isarnan trolls it seemed that the beast had no one area where it attacked, no distinct territory; the victims had been in varying parts of the woods, both on and off the trails.
Going out just before dark probably had been a rather stupid idea, now that she thought about it. The monster wouldn't politely wait until she had fetched Draal and prepared herself to go hunting for it.
Alex summoned her armor and sword as she crept along toward the mines, half expecting to see the glint of eyes in the brief blue flash, but the woods were quiet.
Draal greeted her at the entrance to the trolls' caverns, the glint of a gifted short-sword catching the moonlight. He handed her several sets of flares to keep in her pocket and sheathed the sword at his hip. They set off without words, merely nodding to each other before heading into the woods.
Unfamiliar with the area, they simply walked. They either would come across the creature or they would not, but they kept their footsteps quiet and their ears open. The woods were not quiet; nocturnal animals rustled about, wind rustled the tops of trees and leaves fell on their damp, dying brethren. From everywhere came both close and distant calls of water moving over stone, and a wolf call echoed perhaps a mile away.
They crossed a wide creek, and then another, and then ventured down a stony hill. The farther out they got the warier Alex became. The waiting was starting to get to her. When she looked back at Draal he seemed almost unaffected, but she noticed how he turned and turned his sword in his hand.
"I don't like this," he murmured. She could only silently agree.
Hours passed with nothing more than the calls of hunting birds and the slow passage of the moon and stars, and Alex began to get angry. As they walked across the base of a rocky outcrop she was just about ready to scream bloody murder just to get the beast to show up and stop making her so jumpy with the goddamn waiting.
Finally, finally, her nose found a clue. There was a faint rotting smell, like something decomposing just over the crest of the hill.
"Let's move up there," she whispered, pointing the tip of her sword to the rocky crag. Draal made no other noise but an irritatingly loud whump of leaves and broken sticks. Alex looked at him in annoyance and felt her heart drop into her stomach at the sight of him, laid out on the ground with five gashes opening him hip to sternum.
She hadn't heard a single thing.
Terror instantly seized her veins with ice water and she spun in a circle, fumbling with her flares before dropping half onto the ground. The wet leaves were reluctant to catch and she pumped blue fire onto her sword, and only then did she see the flash of white eyes, staring at her calmly from about chest-height, ten feet away, solid balls of white that stared unblinkingly. The eyes blurred, and five-inch claws sank into her breastplate, knocking her into the smoldering leaves before she could even move her sword. A thin, keening howl tore from the creature's throat as it disappeared back into the darkness outside of the tiny circle of fire.
Alexandra couldn't go after it, because Draal was down. Alexandra couldn't help Draal, because she had to keep on guard. Alexandra couldn't do anything but wait for it to attack again, and when it did, it tore a gash so deep into her shoulder that she dropped her sword. The flash of summoning it again finally illuminated the creature as it tore its retreat, knocking down a tree in its unbelievable haste. Limbs of rotting skin stretched over bone disappeared into the shadows of the woods and waited for its next attack.
Alexandra did the only thing she could do, and stepped outside of her fire. The light had damaged her night vision and she suffered for it, charging at the creature with a cry only to be knocked on her ass, the screech of teeth against metal ringing in her ears. This close she could smell the fetid stench of the monster, like a corpse left to bloat in the summer heat, decay and putrefaction steaming from its jaws as it tried to bite through the gauntlets of her second sets of arms. For such a thin thing it was immensely strong, and when it realized that it couldn't bite her hands off it wrapped its tongue around her wrists so that she could not pull away, and rent at her chest and torso with all four sets of claws.
Alexandra finally got her wits back about her and headbutted the wendigo, tearing a hole in its rotting face with the tip of a horn as it twisted away in pain. The claws were starting to tear deep enough to pierce her skin and she pulled her lower arms up toward her face, and bit through the tongue that bound them.
A scream like creaking trees pierced her ears and she kicked the creature away, spitting violently to rid her mouth of the taste of gangrenous blood. Stumbling against the side of the hill, her head spinning violently with the pain and shock of attack, Alex could only keep one steady eye on the thing, barely illuminated by the fires that crackled near Draal's body. It had moved her away from the area so quickly, without her even noticing that they were moving. Was it trying to take her to a certain spot? A more secluded area, where there was no other light than the moon and she could not see where it attacked from?
The beast rushed by her with a creak of limbs and a splatter of cold blood, and she had no choice but to follow it, the last light of the flares disappearing around the corner of the high crag. It came at her just as she turned, but she was expecting it, and she got a heavy hit on its torso, the blue fire on her sword searing its flesh as its left arm was cut away at the bicep. The wendigo smacked her away with its remaining hand and she tumbled down the hill, landing on her side against a slick stone before sliding off it and into the shallows of a crackling stream.
"Alexandra!"
Panic and relief seared her soul and she twisted around, finding unsteady footing at the edge of the creek.
"Draal! I'm here, I need the flares!"
"Alexandra, help me!"
Draal's voice came from right behind her, and when she turned the beast was standing toe to toe with her, looking down at her from a tremendous height. It calmly stood upright, dark ichor dripping from its maw, and it twitched its head slightly to the side.
"Alexandra," it called, in Draal's voice. "Where are you? Please help me."
She stabbed at it in blind terror, and even with her sword scraping through its sternum it softly stepped a little closer, the broken rack of its ribcage brushing against her torn armor.
"Alexandra," it said, in Draal's voice, "Help me, my friend. Please, please, don't hurt me."
How dare it.
Alexandra grabbed the creature in a harsh embrace and then wrenched her arms apart, taking great strips of skin out of its back before she kneed it in the stomach and kicked it away. But it had found something to unsettle her, and its half-human, rotting face opened in a grimace.
"Don't say another word, you sick fuck," she hissed, swinging her sword at its teeth. It grinned at her and reeled backward, sticking out its cut-off tongue.
"Don't listen," it replied in her own voice before it climbed backward up the hill from the stream, uprooting saplings and small boulders to try and crush her. Alexandra surged forward, lighting her sword and tearing after it, terror and hatred rising in her belly as she dodged the debris.
"Please – "
Her claws a foot away from its neck, Alex froze. The wendigo jumped away and picked up the arm she had severed, devouring it whole with a nauseating crunch. It spoke again in a child's voice.
"Please don't hurt me, please don't hurt me, I just wanna go home, I just wanna find my daddy…"
It grew before her eyes, the skeletal limbs stretching and lengthening a half a foot. It saw the terror and the horror in her eyes and crouched in a vulnerable position, and even though Alex knew it was waiting for her to strike she couldn't, because it had pierced her, its voice slicing at her insides as its claws had her armor.
"Please, I don't wanna die," it cried, a different child's fearful moans falling from its fanged jaws. "Mommy, I'm so scared, please! I don't wanna die, I'm hurt, I'm hurt, stop hurting me, I wanna go home!"
Her research had told her than it could mimic voices but she'd never expected this, could not have prepared for this, and her sword arm trembled even as the creature flexed its claws and sneered its bloody jaws at her stricken face.
In the end, the ploy worked, but the wendigo apparently hadn't anticipated Draal driving his sword so far through its back that the troll's fingers burst out of its chest. Alexandra shook herself out of her shock and removed from it its remaining three limbs.
Draal looked at her in utter confusion but she shook her head, as well as her hands and knees and the rest of her body. God, she was a mess, and she sank into the wet leaves on the forest floor.
"Won't kill it," Alexandra spat, her voice hoarse with shock-tears. "Stabbed it before. Gotta find a way to kill it."
"We can try the fire," Draal said, and then fell down on his knees. The deep tears across his torso glowed with whatever weird crystalline magic was inside all trolls, and they bled greatly but sluggishly. The wendigo, trapped with Draal's fist through its chest, thrashed and wriggled with rage and Draal had a hard time keeping it from touching the ground.
Alex lit the flares still remaining from Draal's supply, but to no avail. The rotting skin of the creature simply rotted some more, and the howls of agony echoed through the woods, but it did not die. Alexandra even removed her gauntlets and her bandages from one hand and tried to burn it to death herself, but only ended up with painful welts and blisters.
The wendigo started to retch, shivering uncontrollably as if it were drowning without water. It wasn't dying, but the bleeding stumps of its arms swiped harmlessly over its chest and throat, as if something was trying to get out.
Alexandra, now calmed down considerably, remembered her research on the thing.
"There were some legends that said that it wasn't so much a creature as a spirit; some sort of demon that possessed the body of a greedy human. Some of the Trollhunters' accounts said that they killed it easily enough with force, but some had to destroy not just the body but the possessing spirit as well. I think that's the kind of wendigo we're dealing with here."
"Great," Draal said loudly, the arm still impale through the beast propped up against the side of a rock. "Let's then destroy the spirit. Shall we try stabbing it again?"
Alexandra ignored the sarcasm and the exhausted troll, pressing a hand on her haphazardly-bandaged shoulder as she thought.
"It knows its host is useless now," she mused. "It's not even trying to fight anymore, look, it's trying to get out. The body's useless but it's still trapped inside. If we can figure out a way to kill the body we'll still need to trap and kill the spirit. I'll be right back."
She stood abruptly and climbed up the rocky hill, setting off in the general direction of the Isarnan mines.
"I'll just wait here, then," Draal angrily called after her.
It took her a solid hour to find the mines again in the broken moonlight, only the faint scent of troll leading her back. She shook off any offers of healing and medication and asked for a solid iron box. When she gave her reasons they upgraded and sent her with an iron canister, coated with silver on the inside, imbued and carved with protective spells. Iron and silver were the best metals used to hold and contain spirits and magic. Alexandra took the canister and several charms that they also offered her, hoping to contain the spirit to one area so that it could not fly off and infect anyone from the town.
Draal was right were she left him, if a little more slumped and exhausted-looking. The wendigo was still trying to choke and claw at itself, and the power of the charms Alexandra wore gave her a unique sight; a human man, cut to ribbons and pieces, skeletal beyond all survival and entwined with a greedy, hungry spirit.
Draal watched in silence as Alex by the creature's side. It still tried to bite her, and whimpered with the voice of a frightened old woman. She touched first an iron charm to it, then a silver, and only the silver made it shriek. She didn't have enough silver charms to keep it contained.
"I'm going to stab the heart," Alex said quietly. "That's what one of the legends said. If that doesn't work, we'll take the head.
"How will you keep it from simply flying away," Draal asked, as if discussing the weather. Apparently being both injured and bored had a rather interesting effect on his scintillating personality.
"I'll give it a target," Alexandra muttered, opening the canister and rising to her feet.
It would be too much to ask Draal to look away. She wasn't ready, she wasn't ready, but she couldn't ask him to look away.
She hesitated a hair too long, and he asked her what she was doing. She didn't ask him to look away.
The Change was rent from her like the long-held breath of a drowning man, a choking sensation to what was usually painless and smooth. The light seared the trees and stones around them and illuminated Draal's wide eyes and she refused to look at him, keeping her armor on as if it could protect her from his sight. She drove Daylight through the wendigo's heart before the Change was even finished, and the flames ate the desiccated flesh there as they had not before, devouring the creature in blue, crackling fire as it screamed and shrieked in dozens of fused voices. It crumbled to cold ash and bone away from Draal's fist, and the remaining spirit shivered in the moonlight.
Alexandra's mind flooded with greed; every thing she had stolen, every life she had taken, every time she had pushed and shoved and snuck her way into a more powerful position or the good of a fool's heart, every time she had taken more than her share. It pulled at every instance of greed in her life, but honestly, as a whole it really wasn't much. In terms of deadly sins Alex had always considered herself to be more aligned with wrath, or perhaps envy or lust. The wendigo tugged at the paltry bits of greed that she offered it and flew straight at her human form, and she snapped it shut within the canister, Changing back as soon as the lid was closed. The whole thing had taken less than seven seconds, she had counted, and Draal couldn't have seen her that closely, not with the darkness and the quick, bright flashes ruining his eyes.
Alexandra still refused to look at him, laying with his arm still upraised. She grabbed it and hauled him onto her good shoulder, screaming mentally for him to shut up, shut up, don't speak of this, don't talk about it!
As if sensing her mood, Draal was silent the entire journey back through the woods, and let Alexandra speak as she allowed for him to be treated but announced that they would not be staying any further. She wanted the thing dead, and she could not kill it in a Heartstone that had so many openings to the world upstairs, with mine shafts and guarded but still open entrances that would allow the spirit to fly back and infect another human.
The gyre trip was not short enough to stop Draal from finally trying to talk to her.
"Why are you so sullen?" He asked, glancing at her with a hand on the wendigo's canister, the other across his bandages. "It is not as if I did not know that you are a Changeling."
Alexandra took a particularly violent turn, but failed to unseat him. Unfortunately, he seemed to enjoy the gyre.
I don't like to be that exposed, she thought.
No troll has seen me like that, she thought.
I've never willingly Changed in front of someone, she thought. Not someone I wasn't going to kill, at least.
I wasn't ready.
"Secrecy about what…I am has been my watchword for four hundred years," Alex hissed. "Give me some fucking time. Nobody was supposed to know."
"Do recall that I had an understanding with one of your kind," Draal said quietly. "I saw her Change more than once."
"Nobody was supposed to know."
That was the end of it; Alexandra would speak no further. The trip ended before Draal could argue, and they disembarked with an unfinished discussion hanging over their heads.
Blinky and AAARRRGGHH were holed up in the library, the bustle of Trollmarket almost back to normal as Draal and Alexandra travelled through it to get to Alex's trainer.
AAARRRGGHH quickly smothered the flame with his hand as Blinky knocked a candle over onto a sheet of parchment, having startled at Alexandra's entrance.
"Oh! I wasn't expecting you to be back so soon! And so injured – but I suppose you disposed of the beast?"
Alex took the canister from Draal and showed it to Blinky, who looked it up and down as AAARRRGGHH sniffed it and them. The blood and ash on their clothes and bodies made him sneeze.
"Foul indeed," Blinky said, grimacing at their soiled states. "Do your wounds need further attention?"
"We'll see Vendel in a bit," Alexandra promised. Apparently her word was not enough, because Blinky wrangled a promise from Draal as well, that he would ensure that she did as she said.
"Felsiclase will be joyous indeed that you slayed the beast," said Blinky, after he ascertained that neither of them were going to fall dead to the floor. "But I wonder, how do you intend to kill the spirit? We already have an anstramonstrum taking up a good corner of Vendel's keep, I highly doubt that he will appreciate having to look after yet another trapped semi-demonic entity. Whatever you do, do it away from me."
Alexandra smiled wryly, and popped the lid off of the canister.
Blinky and AAARRRGGHH scrambled backward with ringing yells as the smoky body of the spirit emerged from the canister…
…and flew straight for Blinky, wisps of ethereal grey coming at him like the teeth of a wolf.
The spirit, for lack of a better term, bounced off of the troll, although Blinky seemed perfectly content to have a complete and utter fit anyway, which sent Draal into a gale of laughter.
"AAAHHH! Get away you demonic fiend! Get awaaaay!"
"It cannot hurt you," Draal tried, to no avail. The blue troll was terrified and refused to listen to him, until he and Alex fanned the spirit away with sword and hands. It hovered and shuttered with desperate aggravation, and then slowly dissipated, too far from any human host.
AAARRRGGHH had already enveloped Blinky into a massive hug, where the horrified troll was still trembling.
"Did you see that," he said shakily. "It came straight for me! Me! As I knew it would, having done extensive research on the nature of the thing, but did you care? Did – "
"I knew it was going to come for you," Alexandra said, banishing her sword and armor. Blinky stared at her with absolute incredulity before his face turned angry and he tried to clamor out of AAARRRGGHH's tightened grip.
"You set me up as BAIT?"
"It couldn't hurt you, Blinky, it was a human demon! You're a damn troll!"
"The nerve! The temerity! The brazenness!"
Behind her, Draal was having to lean on the wall.
"I'll see you for training tomorrow, Blinky," said Alexandra, grabbing Draal by the arm and pushing him out of the library.
"You should be sure to take care with those wounds of yours tonight, Master Alexandra, because come tomorrow I certainly shall not! See you tomorrow indeed, why I have never been so…"
Blinky's grumbling voice faded as they made their way to the healing dwell, neither of them intent on being fussed at personally by Vendel. If either of them were a little quieter when they finally reached Draal's room and settled down for bed, a little more distant, then they neither of them made to remedy it.
Draal fell onto the nest immediately upon entering, his hand draping over the edge of the bed and knocking over a bag of cat food, which the mewling denizens of the room attacked with fervor. Alexandra desperately wanted to rid herself of the stench of decaying flesh, but she tripped over a cat on her way to the door and decided that nope, food and a bath would have to wait until her sudden exhaustion had retreated for another day. She turned back to the nest, and stopped.
There was a gaggletack sitting on the lone desk, amid the scattered journals and leavings of forgotten meals. She felt its tinny, aching hum in the blood of her nearest hand.
Bared of their bandages, her fingertips sang with the forceful magic as she reached out with a shaking arm, only to snatch it back when the power shocked her just before touching it.
Why Draal had a gaggletack…
But it wasn't important.
And yet…
But Alexandra did not leave for her own room, and Draal did not ask her to, and if in the quietness of the night Alex clutched a little more to Draal than she usually did, well. They didn't talk about that, either.
A/N: Did you see the tiny book references? AAARRRGGHH attracts cats, which is unfortunate because he also eats cats. There's also how Alex has to kill the wendigo, which is a nod to where book!Jim has to kill a Changeling that looks and sounds exactly like a human baby.It wrenches at both of them.
That being said, I had to research these things in broad daylight, with happy music playing and birds singing outside. I fucking hate…those things, I don't even like typing the name, ever since I saw that fucking Supernatural episode. This shit scared the crap out of me. I had to play cheerful guitar music just to write this chapter. I hope it scared the fucking shit out of you.
Sorry for the random monster-hunting episode, but I ran out of ideas and I kind of want to see Alexandra actually being a Trollhunter. It's not some heroic ideal, it's an actual job, with actual stuff that you need to do besides looking shiny and saying obscure, wise stuff. She can't just hang out in Trollmarket all day, waiting for something to happen.
I had to include the bath bit. If there's a way for Alex to piss off her predecessor she's going to go for it, and I also wanted her to take a little risk. This whole chapter is risky, in terms of her opening up. Who she will develop into by the end of her story will be vastly different than how she started out, and it's probably time that I actually started to get into some actual character development. It does take a certain kind of person to be a Trollhunter, and Alex needs to move into the more compassionate and open parts of her rocky personality if she's going to be a new one. That battle hit her hard; having to fight what were supposed to be her kin in defense of trolls who only accepted her because they don't know her true nature.
Also a little bit of character for Blinky. I wasn't planning for him to be a focus here but wendigos are all about greed and, well. Blinky hoards books and 'rare' dwárkstones, somehow had the parts of a vespa hidden away in his possession, and has little knick-knacks everywhere. If Blinky were a Deadly Sin, he'd be either Greed or Wrath, I think. Ain't gonna say what AAARRRGGHH would have been once upon a time. AAARRRGGHH's not a Deadly Sin. He's actually the eighth and lesser-known Contrary Virtue, the good and pure Cinnamon Bun.